Aerospace Christchurch Meet Up #17: Projects to Inspire

Once again we had an absolutely superb line-up of speakers for this Meet Up, Projects To Inspire. Our speakers talked to us about some of the inspiring projects currently taking place in New Zealand.

Helping To Save The World’s Rarest Dolphin With Technology
Tane van der Boon, CEO, Co-founder, MAUI63
MAUI63 has combined large UAV’s with computer vision artificial intelligence to collect data about critically endangered marine mammals. Tane talked through the different components of the project, and gave some detail into the technology used and their journey to date.

UC Aerospace Club Update
Jessica Logopati, President, UC Aerospace
Jessica provided us an update on the year ahead for the UC Aerospace team.

I’ve Got A Cunning Plan – An Edible Drone
Phillip Harrall AFC MPhil, Windhorse Aerospace
Phillip has been involved with a number of start-up companies, three of his own and Windhorse Aerospace with a small team of four. Taking a dream and making it a reality is really hard, but managing expectations is harder.

Titanium Additive Manufacturing For Spacecraft
Peter Sefont, Technical Director, Zenith Tecnica
Zenith Tecnica, a contract manufacturer specialising in titanium 3D printing, has become a world leader of Electron Beam Melting (EBM) additive manufacturing since its establishment in 2014. Peter highlighted the benefits and capabilities that titanium 3D printing can offer to spacecraft manufacturing.

Defining And Achieving Success
Geraint Bermingham, Director, Navigatus.aero
Navigatus.aero specialises in aviation risk analysis, assessment and management. Geraint discussed how success is achieved by first understanding risk in terms of objectives and the UAV Foundation Safety Case (FSC) model that Navigatus has developed. This FSC sets out the essential objectives (the success criteria) and provides a framework that enables the structured assessment of UAV systems to ensure the safe and successful integration of UAV into the national and the international aviation system.

Creating A More Connected Planet Through The Autonomous Air-Transport Of Goods And People
Shaun Johnson, CEO, Merlin Labs NZ
The Merlin Labs team is partnering with the Aotearoa aerospace community in order to build an autonomous aviation infrastructure that will enable the air transportation of goods, and eventually people, throughout New Zealand and the world.

A special thank you to our Gold Event Sponsor Merlin Labs NZ, venue sponsor Ara Institute of Canterbury and support by ChristchurchNZ.